…”When I started doing a little research, I found the Greek word for ‘lightning’ is ‘astrape’, and the Hebrew equivalent is ‘Baraq,'” said YouTube contributor “ppsimmons,” a self-described Christian with a theological education and many years in the ministry, who spoke to WND under condition of anonymity. “I thought that was fascinating.”

As he continued looking into the rest of the words in the phrase, he focused on “heaven,” and found that it can refer not just to God’s dwelling place, but also “the heights” or “high places.”

He then recalledIsaiah 14:14, where Lucifer, another name for Satan, is quoted as saying, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”

Thus, on the video, the announcer notes, “If spoken by a Jewish rabbi today, influenced by the poetry of Isaiah, He (Jesus) would say these words in Hebrew … ‘I saw Satan as Baraq Ubamah.'”

The “U” slips in as a Hebrew “vav” construction, supposedly to link “lightning” and “heaven” to together.

Of course, this is yet another farrago of nonsense; as with Walid Shoebat’s crackpot exegesis of the Book of Revelation, this kind of re-interpretation is not warranted by any problem in the text, and it does violence to the context – Jesus in Luke 10:17-20 is clearly celebrating Satan’s fall in response to his disciples’ reports of their successes as exorcists.

In fact, the Greek word used in the verse from Luke translated as “Heaven” is “ouranos” (or “ouranou”, to keep the correct case ending). If one wanted to render this into Hebrew or Aramaic (which is not, by the way, “the most ancient form of Hebrew”), it would be more appropriate to use “shamayim” than “bamah”, notwithstanding Isaiah 14:14 (where the context has Lucifer (actually the King of Babylon) desiring to rise to somewhere beyond the “bamah”, anyway). Another difficulty is that the verb “fall” has been dropped from ppsimmon’s final version: it’s obvious that Satan is being compared to the physical phenomenon of lightning, as Satan supposedly falls from the sky. Or did Jesus mean to say “I saw Satan fall like Barack Obama”? What would that mean? As for the “vav” construction, those are attached to certain verbs rather than nouns, and they are not used to indicate the preposition “from” [see update below for more].

This particularly daft theory has actually been around for a year or so. This blog post attributes it to a certain “Hon. Dr. Rabbi Sollog Immanuel Adonai-Adoni”; he tries to address the “fall” issue by suggesting a mistranslation of a Hebrew phonetic rendering of the word for “sin”:

In Luke 10:18, in GREEK, Pipto is not used. The word is pesouta. This is probably a Greek phonetic usage of the Hebrew word. Like Satan is Hebrew and translated phonetically as a Hebrew word, it seems pesouta, a Hebrew word, was not correctly translated, since a Greek word NOT IN THE GREEK TEXT for “fall” is credited by scholars as being in the Satan is Barack (Lightning) verse.

The Hebrew root of pesouta is a word normally used to refer to a “transgression” or a sin

Alas, however, the Greek word used in the New Testament is “pesonta” – “having falled” – not “pesouta”. And again, “fall” makes obvious sense in the context of the passage.

Sollog Immanuel Adonai-Adoni has a website here; he claims to to have the power of prophecy, and to be an expert in Kabbalah. A 1996 report by Howard Altman from the Philadelphia Citypaper names him as John Patrick Ennis and describes his efforts to defend himself in court from some criminal charges arising from drunkenness by declaring himself to be God:

When I got a call that SOLLOG was on the stand, I knew I had to go see him.

He was, after all, the guy I reported to the FBI for making bomb threats against me. He was the guy who sent me dozens of faxes explaining the link between the Oklahoma City bombing and every natural disaster from hurricanes to earthquakes.

I wasn’t SOLLOG’s only object of affection.

Last September, the feds busted SOLLOG for making threats against the president.

The Secret Service has no sense of humor about such things and dispatched agents to SOLLOG’s Society Hill Towers apartment to arrest him. Though the charges were dropped, SOLLOG was held because law enforcement officials found two outstanding warrants for SOLLOG’s arrest.

One was from Maricopa County, Arizona, where in 1987, SOLLOG admitted to selling obscene materials. He was put on probation, but violated it with an aggravated assault later that year. When SOLLOG left Arizona, authorities issued a warrant for his arrest.

…His first business, he said, was working for Arizona’s largest porn purveyor, Peeps, a family-owned venture.

UPDATE: Some bloggers with better Biblical language skills than me add some other points. The Spyglass points out:

One, the plural of bamah in Isaiah 14:14—to which the person who did the video refers in order to justify his back-translation of bamah—is indeed bamatey; or better, bāmātê, since the yodh there isn’t functioning as a consonant but rather as a vowel marker. (Actually, the root word should really be written bāmâ, since the closing hē isn’t really a consonant either, but also just a vowel marker.)…The word is never used to denote Heaven, the place where God dwells, however, and never would have been, since the primary meaning of bāmâ was a place of worship (the “high places” that the kings of Israel/Judah are criticized throughout the middle OT for not taking down); the word for “heights” that is used in this way is mārôm. Besides, if Jesus had used bāmâ, we wouldn’t have to guess, since it actually passed into NT Greek in the form bēma.

It is incorrect to say that vav “is often transliterated as a ‘u’,” and still more incorrect to say that ‘o’ is a different transliteration used by “some scholars.” Rather, sometimes when the consonant vav is in the text, it’s serving as a “u,” and sometimes it’s serving as an “o.” However, this is different from the use of vav in the Hebrew conjunction, which is the prefix ve-.

…the closest to “Barack Obama” that Jesus could have spoken would have been something like kibaraq min-ubamatey.

UPDATE 2: Ppsimmons has now updated his report to a “more accurate” version. This revised edition – in which the narrator sounds slightly impatient – contains a citation from Wikipedia about the relationship between Aramaic and Herbrew, and a section on the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8. In that parable, Jesus compares seeds that are snatched up by “birds of the sky” to the way Satan snatches away the Gospel. Ppsimmons reads this homely simile as cosmology, and because the parable uses “ouranos” for “sky”, this shows that “ouranos” is therefore the demonic realm. This is another failure – it’s a PARABLE! If this story means that “ouranos” is literally the demonic realm, then Satan and demons are literally birds! As in English, “ouranos” as “heaven” can mean either the sky or a spiritual realm – in Luke 8 it’s clearly “sky” in a natural sense, in Luke 10 a somewhat obscure mixture of the two. Of course, Paul also saw Satan as living in the air, but in Ephesians he uses “aeros” to express this, not “ouranos”.

As to the problem with his understanding of the use of “vav” – ppsimmons solves that by removing any reference to it in his revision. Instead, he is content to note that “Barack” has a phonetic similarity to the Hebrew for “lightning”, and that Jesus might or might not have used the word “Bamah” in the same sentence.

UPDATE 3: Elsewhere, ppsimmons exhorts us:

This is UNBELIEVABLE! Yet…documented, verified and TRUE! You have got to watch this film and forward it to everyone you know! This will blow you away! Obama, The Lottery and 666. It cannot be debated – the facts are documented…now we simply wait and see. Is he really the antichrist? You will also want to watch these films on youtube 1. Is Obama a Muslim or Arab? 2. Obama the Renegade 3. Is Obama the Antichrist? 4. OBAMA – The ONLY One 5. Obama – A Catalogue of Blasphemies! 6. Revelation is Happening Now!

I believe the Lord raised up WorldNutDaily for a time such as this. The liberal media would never bring us such hard-hitting Truth (note the capital T). This is a deeper, truthier kind of Truth. Not that fact-based stuff libs are always blathering about.

Seriously, this is sad. I bet the writer of Isaiah would have been suprised to learn that Lucifer is another name for Satan.

I love how ppsimmons, in his interview with WND, makes use of the old “I ain’t sayin’, I’m just sayin'” safety valve on the findings of his ‘research’. If he turns out to be wrong, he doesn’t want to be held responsible for his reckless sensationalism. But still, you are supposed to believe him because “it cannot be debated–the facts are documented.” What an insincere, quarter-assed attempt at suspended judgment. If this nonsense is not an example of “using the Bible as a Ouija board”, what is?

I got this before anyone else did, out those chapters Isaiah, and luke but their is one more word in the KJV. spelled Barack. he is a man speaking in the bible and he is known to be a truce leader, and then breaks the covenant i told my husband he would be president in early of 2008. I always new from reading my Bible in the last days would be a black man rising to power. I am very thankful for Obama, he gets to see me test my faith in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and my Father God in heaven. I am glad for this video, now my husband knows i did not tell a lie. The Bible, the WORD OF GOD has proved me right.

I told my husband about this obama thing, and this was what i found in the BIble the words are hidden scripture’s and you have to pay attention really hard to get it, i told my husband in the last days a black man would rise and it was Obama who would get elected. A black man because Hebrews and people in the middle east are darker skinned. I showed him were a word i found was spelled Barak, it is in the older prophecy books were mentioned this barak was a man speaking and he would be a truce leader, and then be a covenant breaker. I pay attention to who is talking in the Bible. That is the most important step, this leader would cause everyone to take one world languages, which God gave us all different languages so that we would not understand each other, but so we could here them talk with his spirit, this man was also going to cause a one world religion, and in God’s eyes it don’t matter what religion you are as long as it is not denying Him and His Son Jesus Christ… This man starts war world 3, i let my husband know that world war 3 is that last war on earth and it will be hellish, and very scary stuff we never saw or heard in our whole lives of being in this earth, stuff i do not like thinking about. But i do think about it, because i am ready for Jesus to come back and save his true believing children who have faith knowledge and understanding and who loves Him, and trust, in him.. I also got this 12 tribes of Israel and they numbered there houses as i got through to the end of the Bible, i hit revelation 13, and studied it alone for 2 days i got super scriptions, numbers, and images. I said wait a second i got it. i cried and i panicked i said my picture is on my id card, there are letters on my id card super scriptions are letters, numbers are my address. I ran in here to my computer in 2005 and on my computer a page came up that said National Identification barcodes coming soon to a DRIVERS LICENSE OFFICE NEAR YOU! I begged people Doctor’s, store’s and everywhere else to quit asking me to show it to them so i would not go worship them. I do not have to touch it no more. I got a ID card and got the Computer chip for embedded in the skin out of the bIble as well. One was to carry one was to embed in the skin, well embed is to plant. Then after staying in my Bible for 2 years. I started listening to preachers and what they teach. It is a human who leads a beast system. Satan has a system, satan has technology. I did not go to school, and i did not start buying theology books or anything until 2007. I am shocked at what i found out, Revelation 14 that those that took either mark and did not sacrifice things in the earth go to hell with the false prophet, anti-christ, and the beast. I am amazed at what the has bible done for me. This is how i started believing in God, and trusting him and keeping my faith, and believing every word of my KJV bible. God showed me something, and He woke me up to warn me. So i could warn many people,they will be lied to and fall for the lies. I am thankful it is not me.

It’s sad that anyone would rely on books that were written by MEN!!!!! Everything you have discovered and everything that was written was written to scare the uneducated into submission. Hence the reason why the church is slowly losing power. The world is opening up its eyes to the writings of men and seeing through the BS. My advice to everyone is… LIVE. Just live and be happy. Smile and walk through the world as if it were your last day and just be happy for the day. Who cares about our black president and who cares that a 3rd world country lost a lot of people in a NATURAL DISASTER!!!!! If “God” wanted those people alive, do you really think he would have sent an earthquake or a tsunami? Or better yet, allowed them to live in that location knowing that a disaster is eminent? Think about it…. sit there and take a moment and think about it. These are things we CANNOT control, so why live your life in fear of them. Just LIVE!!!!
As for this Sollog character, he is nuts and in a dangerous way. Anyone that would claim they are a GOD is absurd because there really is no proof that God even exists, except in the teachings written by MEN and then that would make him above all things human. No one should have that power. Even our black president doesn’t have that kind of power.

[…] by Christian fundamentalists to whip up “Obama is the anti-Christ” paranoia (part of a larger trend); it was noted that Obama had visited Kenya in 1988, and this site claimed to show that he was the […]

My Book Reviews

Note on Attacks

Anyone who comments on current affairs on-line risks being smeared by attack sites and/or abusive Tweets. This is particularly so if one chooses to challenge dishonesty or other kinds of reprehensible behaviour.

As a result of making a stand in a few particular instances, I have become the focus of a number of such attacks.

The bad faith of such sites and Tweets ought to be self-evident. However, any readers interested in the true background can read this and this.